Troubleshooting slow down on G5 PowerMac (PPC May 05)

My PowerMac is slow to load internet pages and slow to function when moving around in applications. I try to keep only the essentials running and limit the number of windows open, but to no avail. I just tried to burn a DVD, and it didn't burn evenly. The DVD catches and slows down randomly.
I don't know where to begin troubleshooting this issue. I've tried changing the performance in Energy Saver Pane of System Preferences, but that hasn't helped. My OS is up to date. If this is a processor thing or I need more RAM, I really just don't know how to proceed.
Any advice or troubleshooting suggestions would be extremely helpful.

Hi appleclaire:
1) Try using Disk Utikity to 'Repair Permissions' and 'Verify/Repair' Disk. You may need to start from you system DVD ie:
"To use the Install Mac OS X disc, insert the disc and restart your computer holding down the"C" Key OR (Option key and then select the Install Mac OS X disc and click the arrow).
Open Disk Utility.
In the Mac OS X Installer, choose Utilities > Open Disk Utility.
Select the startup disk you want to repair in the list of disks and volumes, then click First Aid.
Click the button to verify or repair the disk or disk permissions.
Check the S.M.A.R.T. status of your hard disk at the bottom of the window. If it shows "Verified," the disk has nothing wrong at this time. If you see "About to Fail" in red letters, back up your files on the disk as soon as possible and replace the disk."
2) Get the free program ONYX and use it to perform 'optimize system- complete' and run ALL the cron scrips - Daily/Weekly/Monthly.
3) You may need to defrag you disk with programs like iDefrag, Techtool Pro 4, Drive Genius, or Speed Tools.
-Robert

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Completed all Troubleshooting steps but continue to get slow downs from unresponsive scripts on Firefox. Is there a way to use my browser w/out slow downs?

Mac OSX.
I've gone through the list of troubleshooting tips for slow downs and for unresponsive scripts. I continue to get slow downs to my computer and browser when I use my Firefox. It is becoming so bad that sometimes I cannot get work done.

And now, I think I've identified part of the issue. When you pin tabs as an app tab, this slows down Firefox in all the ways I mentioned. Please, please Firefox, if you are going to offer such a useful and simple thing, make sure that it works...
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Outlook 2010 - User tends to open many emails at a go but this may slow down the machine.

Hi,
My user tends to have this work habit of opening 8-10 emails at one go. She view this way of working as more efficient and faster. But this means that if outlook crashed, all the emails will be close as well, and this way of working tends to slow down the
machine.
Is there any way Outlook can users to open multiple emails without hording CPU page milage?
Thank you.

Hi Josh,
Slow Outlook can be also harmful for your database and there are numbers of factor which slow down the MS-Outlook like:
* Third Party Plug-ins
* Slow internet connection
* Antivirus/ Firewall Programs
* Corruption or Error within Outlook
So always try to open Microsoft Outlook in safe mode whenever you stuck in such problems.
How to optimize Outlook performance:
* By Disabling add-ins
* Check default account settings
* Disabling Scanning programs
* Scanpst.exe (Inbox Repair Tool)
For more brief about Outlook disturbance and solutions:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813514
Note: Improve community discussions by marking the answers helpful.
Thanks
Clark Kent

Shell script may slow down terminal opening

script
Here is a piece of script on wiki,
alias archnews="echo -e \"$(echo $(curl --silent http://www.archlinux.org/feeds/news/ | sed -e ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n/ /g') | sed -e 's/<\/a>/@/g' | sed -e 's/<title>/\\n\\n\\n\\t:: \\e[01;31m/g' -e 's/<\/title>/\\e[00m ::\\n/g' | sed -e 's/<link>/ [ \\e[01;36m/g' -e 's/<\/link>/\\e[00m ]/g' | sed -e 's/<description>/\\n\\n\\e[00;37m/g' -e 's/<\/description>/\\e[00m\\n\\n/g' | sed -e 's/<p>/\n/g' | sed -e 's/<a href\=\"$[^\"]*$\">$[^@]*$@/\\e[01;32m\2\\e[00;37m \\e[01;34m[ \\e[01;35m\1\\e[00;37m\\e[01;34m ]\\e[00;37m/g' | sed -e 's/<li>/\n \\e[01;34m*\\e[00;37m /g' | sed -e 's/<[^>]*>/ /g' | sed -e 's/<.*>//g')\n\n\""
I found it would slow down the terminal from opening under slow network connection (or without network).
It take about 1 second to open a new terminal with it in .bashrc.
Forgive my English.
Last edited by sillyousu (2012-09-10 14:23:40)

Take this command as an example:
$ alias thetime="echo $(date)"
$ thetime
Mon Sep 10 12:54:38 CEST 2012
$ sleep 10
$ thetime
Mon Sep 10 12:54:38 CEST 2012
The $() command in double quotes is launched once at shell start up. If news comes while the shell stays open, this alias won't actually fetch the news.

My mid 2011 MacBook Air has slowed down significantly overnight?

Last night my MacBook Air was working fine.
When I went to use it this morning, it has slowed down significantly. It takes awhile for it to respond to trackpad movement or the keyboard. Opening finder is delayed now, opening any app is delayed now. Booting it back up takes extra long now, probably around a minute compared to thirty seconds before.
I've tried an SMC reset, repairing the disk and repairing disk permissions.
From what I can see, the hardware doesn't appear to be failing, but I could be wrong.
Can anyone help me out? What could possibly be going on with my MacBook? How did this happen overnight?

Your MacBook Air's memory is not upgradable, and as you already determined unused storage capacity is not a relevant factor.
There are many reasons a Mac may be performing slower than expected.
Back up your documents and everything else important to you before proceeding.
To help determine the possible causes of this behaviour read the following. None of what follows is intended to fix anything, but it will provide the additional information required to advance troubleshooting:
Boot OS X Recovery by holding ⌘ and r (two fingers) while you start your Mac. At the Mac OS X Utilities screen, select Disk Utility. Select your startup volume (usually named "Macintosh HD") and click the Repair Disk button. Describe any errors it reports in red.
When it finishes restart your Mac and test again for operation. If it's still not behaving as you expect it should, please post the results of EtreCheck in accordance with the following instructions:
Apple Support Communities contributor etresoft wrote a very useful app to quickly gather certain system information that may help point to a cause of this problem. Go to his website, download and run EtreCheck:
http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck
Etrecheck will be in your Downloads folder. Open it from there. You may see the following dialog box:
Click Open - etresoft contributes to this forum frequently and can be considered a trustworthy developer.
It will take a moment to run as it collects its data.
Copy and paste its output in a reply.
Do not be concerned about anything that says "Problem" or “failed” or anything else that may appear in red.
EtreCheck was designed to remove any personal information (such as your computer's name and serial numbers) but if you see anything that looks like an email address or any other personal information that should not be divulged to others, please delete or obscure that information when you post the reply.
When you are finished with EtreCheck, quit the program. It occupies very little space, and you can keep it or drag it to the Trash as you wish.
After completing the above please determine if the problems also occur in "Safe Mode":
Safe Mode or "Safe Boot" is a troubleshooting mode that bypasses all third party system extensions and loads only required system components. Read about it: Starting up in Safe Mode
You must disable FileVault before you can start your Mac in Safe Mode.
Starting your Mac in Safe Mode will take longer than usual, graphics will not render smoothly, audio is disabled on some Macs, and some programs (iTunes for example) may not work at all.
Merely starting your Mac in Safe Mode is not intended to resolve the problem, it's to observe its performance without certain additional components.
To end Safe Mode restart your Mac normally. Shutdown will take longer as well.
To identify potential hardware problems: Apple Hardware Test.

I am running OSX10.9.1 on an iMac, and its slowing down. MacKeeper and others are offering me procedures to fix this. Do they work?

Is MacKeeper or some other product useful on vleaaning up myiMac, which is slowing down

Things You Can Do To Resolve Slow Downs
If your computer seems to be running slower here are some things you can do:
Start with visits to:     OS X Maintenance - MacAttorney;
                                  The X Lab: The X-FAQs;
                                  The Safe Mac » Mac Performance Guide;
                                  The Safe Mac » The myth of the dirty Mac;
                                  Mac maintenance Quick Assist.
Boot into Safe Mode then repair your hard drive and permissions:
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions Pre-Lion
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
Repair the Hard Drive - Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the Utilites Menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD disk icon and click on the arrow button below.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported, then click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
Restart your computer normally and see if this has helped any. Next do some maintenance:
For situations Disk Utility cannot handle the best third-party utility is Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.x is now Intel Mac compatible.
Note: Alsoft ships DW on a bootable DVD that will startup Macs running Snow Leopard or earlier. It cannot start Macs that came with Lion or later pre-installed, however, DW will work on those models.
Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts was significantly reduced since Tiger. These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard or later and should not be installed.
OS X automatically defragments files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive.
Helpful Links Regarding Malware Protection
An excellent link to read is Tom Reed's Mac Malware Guide.
Also, visit The XLab FAQs and read Detecting and avoiding malware and spyware.
See these Apple articles:
          Mac OS X Snow Leopard and malware detection
          OS X Lion- Protect your Mac from malware
          OS X Mountain Lion- Protect your Mac from malware
          About file quarantine in OS X
If you require anti-virus protection I recommend using VirusBarrier Express 1.1.6 or Dr.Web Light both from the App Store. They're both free, and since they're from the App Store, they won't destabilize the system. (Thank you to Thomas Reed for these recommendations.)
Troubleshooting Applications
I recommend downloading a utility such as TinkerTool System, OnyX, Mavericks Cache Cleaner, or Cocktail that you can use for removing old log files and archives, clearing caches, etc. Corrupted cache, log, or temporary files can cause application or OS X crashes as well as kernel panics.
If you have Snow Leopard or Leopard, then for similar repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the command line. Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack 1.6 is compatible with Snow Leopard. Applejack does not work with Lion and later.
Basic Backup
For some people Time Machine will be more than adequate. Time Machine is part of OS X. There are two components:
1. A Time Machine preferences panel as part of System Preferences;
2. A Time Machine application located in the Applications folder. It is
    used to manage backups and to restore backups. Time Machine
    requires a backup drive that is at least twice the capacity of the
    drive being backed up.
Alternatively, get an external drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Carbon Copy Cloner
2. Get Backup
3. Deja Vu
4. SuperDuper!
5. Synk Pro
6. Tri-Backup
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files. For help with using Time Machine visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
Referenced software can be found at MacUpdate.
Additional Hints
Be sure you have an adequate amount of RAM installed for the number of applications you run concurrently. Be sure you leave a minimum of 10% of the hard drive's capacity as free space.
Add more RAM. If your computer has less than 2 GBs of RAM and you are using OS X Leopard or later, then you can do with more RAM. Snow Leopard and Lion work much better with 4 GBs of RAM than their system minimums. The more concurrent applications you tend to use the more RAM you should have.
Always maintain at least 15 GBs or 10% of your hard drive's capacity as free space, whichever is greater. OS X is frequently accessing your hard drive, so providing adequate free space will keep things from slowing down.
Check for applications that may be hogging the CPU:
Pre-Mavericks
Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the Processes dropdown menu. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time (>=70,) then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.
Mavericks and later
Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the View menu. Click on the CPU tab in the toolbar. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time (>=70,) then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.
Often this problem occurs because of a corrupted cache or preferences file or an attempt to write to a corrupted log file.

How do I get rid of the Not Using SoftArtisan File UP notice that is slowing down my uploads to class where I teach?

How do I get rid of the Not Using SoftArtisan File UP notice that is slowing down my uploads to class where I teach? A notice now appears every time I upload an image to class as an attachment that says, Not Using SoftArtisan File UP, and this appears to be slowing down my uploads tremendously. I want to get rid of this. I never used it before and don't need it and don't want it. I just want the uploads to work like they did before this idiotic notice started slowing things down.

Hello,
'''Try Firefox Safe Mode''' to see if the problem goes away. Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode, which disables most add-ons.
''(If you're not using it, switch to the Default theme.)''
* On Windows you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the '''Shift''' key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
* On Mac you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the '''option''' key while starting Firefox.
* On Linux you can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by quitting Firefox and then going to your Terminal and running: firefox -safe-mode (you may need to specify the Firefox installation path e.g. /usr/lib/firefox)
* Or open the Help menu and click on the '''Restart with Add-ons Disabled...''' menu item while Firefox is running.
[[Image:FirefoxSafeMode|width=520]]
''Once you get the pop-up, just select "'Start in Safe Mode"''
[[Image:Safe Mode Fx 15 - Win]]
'''''If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode''''', your problem is probably caused by an extension, and you need to figure out which one. Please follow the [[Troubleshooting extensions and themes]] article for that.
''To exit the Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.''
''When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help other users who have the same problem.''
Thank you.

Hello there! Does anybody know RadioWMPCoreGecko 5.dll. What is it and how can I remove it because it slows down my computer. Thank you.

Starting my computer this morning I immediately was informed by Norton Security that RadioWMPCoreGecko 5.dll is safe. I don´t know this data and I want to remove ist because it slows down my computer. Has that something to do with Firefox? The Information of Firefox-Troubleshooting shows the following detail:
Gecko/20100101 Firefox/8.0.1
Can you help me?
Thank you in anticipation.

To whom it may concern here the answer I received today from Norton Support:
''I would like to inform you that the RadioWMPCoreGecko 5.dll files was downloaded as an update for the Firefox browser which runs in the background and Norton program does not have any control on the downloads till it is safe.
If the download is safe, Norton program will notify you and will block, if file finds to be suspicious.''
Now I know what it is, but nevertheless my PC is still rather slow.

Severe Site Slow-Down with multiple DNS/Sites

Alright.. this is a bit of a strange situation, any help is appreciated because I'm pretty much out of troubleshooting options.
Mac OS X Server hosting a few important sites and then several "redirect" sites.
- A PHP/MySQL system
- 2 normal PHP/MySQL websites
- 8 Redirects (domain.bz, domain.biz, domain.name, etc..)
The redirects are set up like so:
- A DNS entry with a "www" alias pointing to the local machine.
- A site with a .html file containing a meta-refresh to domain.com
The Redirects work just fine when they are enabled, www.domain.biz goes to www.domain.com, etc.. however, the 3 sites that run on the server experience severe slow-down to the point of not even loading.
Normally the sites are blazingly fast..
Anyway, if the redirect site entries are disabled, the slow-down disappears.
As an added oddity.. if Safari is experiencing the slowdown, but I cancel the site load.. the site pulls up missing images/css in varying degrees, depending on when I cancel, so it's like something is "hanging".
There's nothing apparent in the error logs other than a report that 'there is a mismatch between the domain name and reverse DNS' etc.. 'may cause some services to not work properly'.

Nevermind, I found the problem.
The performance cache was enabled for the redirect sites.

PC slows down after a while when running labview application

I have a labview 6 application which is monitoring some data on a feildpoint module, after a while this application slows down and there is a lot of activity on the hard disk drive, also the cpu monitor says 100% activity.
Is it something to do with the PC or is it some other reason?
Thanks
Allan

Allan,
My first guess is "Who know's" without seing your VI and probing around; but, to get you started, run your VI and use Labview's tool "Profile VIs..." [Tools... Advanced...] and monitor memory and timing statistics. You may find a constantly increasing use of memory or a VI that consumes an unusual amound of processor time. Then you can troubleshoot from there.
Good luck with it, Doug

My computer system slows down after starting firefox 3.6.6, how do I revert to 3.5 version?

My computer system slows down noticeably after starting Firefox 3.6.6, so I would like to shift back to the 3.5 version. What website in the Internet do I go to get the installer file?
== This happened ==
Every time Firefox opened

Your plugins list shows outdated plugin(s) with known security and stability risks.
# Shockwave Flash 10.0 r45
Update the [[Flash]] plugin to the latest version.
See http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/
You can try if it works if you disable OOPP (Out-Of-Process-Plugins).
See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Plugin-container_and_out-of-process_plugins
You can set the prefs dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.* to false on the about:config page to disable the plugin-container process.
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled (currently false by default)
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npswf32.dll (Flash)
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npctrl.dll (Silverlight)
dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npqtplugin.dll (QuickTime)
To open the ''about:config'' page, type '''about:config''' in the location (address) bar and press the Enter key, just like you type the url of a website to open a website.
If you see a warning then you can confirm that you want to access that page.
Create a new profile as a test to check if your current profile is causing the problems
See [[Basic Troubleshooting|#Make_a_new_profile|Basic Troubleshooting: Make a new profile]]
There may be extensions and plugins installed by default in a new profile, so check that in "Tools > Add-ons > Extensions & Plugins"
If that new profile works then you can transfer some files from the old profile to that new profile (be careful not to copy corrupted files)
See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Transferring_data_to_a_new_profile_-_Firefox
You can find Firefox 3.5.10 here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html

Linksys Wireless Router Slowing Down Internet

Hi, I currently have Optimum Online boost through cablevision. I noticed I wasn't getting speeds anywhere near what Optimum stated my plan includes so I called them up. After troubleshooting they asked me to connect the cable modem directly into my laptop(bypassing the router) and run a speed test and then do the same speed test when accessing internet over the wireless router. The results of this showed that the wireless router was significantly slowing down my internet connection. I currently have a Linksys WRT54G V6 with firmware: v1.00.7, Feb. 16, 2006. Anyone have any ideas what in the router is slowing me down. FYI I am very close to the wireless router(excellent connection) with no interference around(my laptop and a dekstop are the only thing connected to the router) and I have tested this on multiple laptops wirelessly and it all shows that something in the router is slowing this down. MAC Filtering is disabled and the encryption is WPA - Personal AES-CCMP. Thanks! Hope someone can help. ppc
Message Edited by ppc on 06-28-2007 09:24 PM

hm. try updating the firmware. heres the link:
http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_CASupport_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=116685983740...
Long, isn't it?

URGENT!- ibook slowing down, NEED HELP BADLY

Good day.
When I bought my ibook, i upgraded the RAM of this right away. i added a 512MB RAM. I was happy with the way it was performing. After a few months, i decided to buy an externat 40GB hard drive because i found the internal hard drive too small and love downloading song and shows over the internet. after a few months, i noticed that my ibook slowed down. before, the "beachball " would seldom appear. now it appears alot. i just noticed that my ibook has really slowed down. i admit, i download a lot. but all these downloads go straight to the external hard drive. the files that i save in the internal hard drive are only excel, word, and pwerpoint files. very small. anyone can help me? is there something that i can use to speed up my ibooks performance? what should i do? is there such a thing as defragment (just like the one of a pc).

Hi Michaelgnm,
Welcome to Apple Discussions
Try verifying and repairing permissions (Knowledge Base Document #106712 on Troubleshooting permissions issues in Mac OS X). Do you notice you slow during certain times. An example would be working an file from your external hard or using iPhoto. How much hard drive space do you have on your internal hard drive? You may want try deleting programs that you don't use (on my iBook I don't use Garage Band, iDVD, etc). Maybe freeing up some space can help speed things up.
A great program to show you exactly what is on your computer is WhatSize.
If you are going to use WhatSize to delete any files/programs/applications, please be careful and make sure you know exactly what you are deleting and if there are any repercussions. WhatSize will show you files that you would not normally see; they are referred to as "invisible files". These invisible files are hidden from the users view because they would clutter the desktop and they hold vital information that if corrupted or deleted may cause problems. Please make sure you know what you are doing!
Have you deleted files that you don't use; like for my iBook, GarageBand. I use GarageBand on my iMac because it is much easier and faster, so I deleted it on my iBook. Have you tried the "erase install method"? The reason for doing this is because Mac OS X installs all the necessary fonts, languages, drivers, etc that people all over the world my need, by default. This tends to take up some room that you might want to get rid of (make sure first what you don't need and need). You erase and install your system software (Knowledge Base Document 301270 About Install Options w/ Mac OS X 10.4), and when installing, do a custom install. This way you can install the languages, drivers, and applications you want. The same technique can be done with iLife.
Do you using any "pro" applications (Adobe Photo CS, Aperture, etc)? You may want to try using a program like OnyX to run some maintenance scripts.
I hope that helps,
Jon
Mac Mini 1.42Ghz, iPod (All), Airport (Graphite & Express), G4 1.33Ghz iBook, G4 iMac 1Ghz, G3 500Mhz, iBook iMac 233Mhz, eMate, Power Mac 5400 LC, PowerBook 540c, Macintosh 128K, Apple //e, Apple //, and some more... Mac OS X (10.4.5) Moto Razr, iLife '06, SmartDisk 160Gb, Apple BT Mouse, Sight..

My newest iMac from a year ago is showing signs of slowing down its processing capability. Notice it especially in Aperture where I get the whirling dervish thing sometimes for a minute or more and once it crashed. Is there a way to "clean up the system"?

My newest iMac from a year ago is getting very sluggish. I notice it particularly in Aperture. I get the whirling dervish thing going on an operation sometimes for many seconds, even a minute or more and once it just crashed and I had to restart with the button. So I'm wondering if there is some way to "clean up the system" that is built into the iMac or if there is a reliable app I can obtain that will clean things up. I'm supposed to have a super fast processor in this version of iMac and lots of hard drive space and RAM. What gives? Any suggestions?

Things You Can Do To Resolve Slow Downs
If your computer seems to be running slower here are some things you can do:
Start with visits to:     OS X Maintenance - MacAttorney;
                                  The X Lab: The X-FAQs;
                                  The Safe Mac » Mac Performance Guide;
                                  The Safe Mac » The myth of the dirty Mac;
                                  Mac maintenance Quick Assist.
Boot into Safe Mode then repair your hard drive and permissions:
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions Pre-Lion
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
Repair the Hard Drive - Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the Utilites Menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD disk icon and click on the arrow button below.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported, then click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
Restart your computer normally and see if this has helped any. Next do some maintenance:
For situations Disk Utility cannot handle the best third-party utility is Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.x is now Intel Mac compatible.
Note: Alsoft ships DW on a bootable DVD that will startup Macs running Snow Leopard or earlier. It cannot start Macs that came with Lion or later pre-installed, however, DW will work on those models.
Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts was significantly reduced since Tiger. These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard or later and should not be installed.
OS X automatically defragments files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive.
Helpful Links Regarding Malware Protection
An excellent link to read is Tom Reed's Mac Malware Guide.
Also, visit The XLab FAQs and read Detecting and avoiding malware and spyware.
See these Apple articles:
          Mac OS X Snow Leopard and malware detection
          OS X Lion- Protect your Mac from malware
          OS X Mountain Lion- Protect your Mac from malware
          About file quarantine in OS X
If you require anti-virus protection I recommend using VirusBarrier Express 1.1.6 or Dr.Web Light both from the App Store. They're both free, and since they're from the App Store, they won't destabilize the system. (Thank you to Thomas Reed for these recommendations.)
Troubleshooting Applications
I recommend downloading a utility such as TinkerTool System, OnyX, Mavericks Cache Cleaner, or Cocktail that you can use for removing old log files and archives, clearing caches, etc. Corrupted cache, log, or temporary files can cause application or OS X crashes as well as kernel panics.
If you have Snow Leopard or Leopard, then for similar repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the command line. Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack 1.6 is compatible with Snow Leopard. Applejack does not work with Lion and later.
Basic Backup
For some people Time Machine will be more than adequate. Time Machine is part of OS X. There are two components:
1. A Time Machine preferences panel as part of System Preferences;
2. A Time Machine application located in the Applications folder. It is
    used to manage backups and to restore backups. Time Machine
    requires a backup drive that is at least twice the capacity of the
    drive being backed up.
Alternatively, get an external drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Carbon Copy Cloner
2. Get Backup
3. Deja Vu
4. SuperDuper!
5. Synk Pro
6. Tri-Backup
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files. For help with using Time Machine visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
Referenced software can be found at MacUpdate.
Additional Hints
Be sure you have an adequate amount of RAM installed for the number of applications you run concurrently. Be sure you leave a minimum of 10% of the hard drive's capacity as free space.
Add more RAM. If your computer has less than 2 GBs of RAM and you are using OS X Leopard or later, then you can do with more RAM. Snow Leopard and Lion work much better with 4 GBs of RAM than their system minimums. The more concurrent applications you tend to use the more RAM you should have.
Always maintain at least 15 GBs or 10% of your hard drive's capacity as free space, whichever is greater. OS X is frequently accessing your hard drive, so providing adequate free space will keep things from slowing down.
Check for applications that may be hogging the CPU:
Pre-Mavericks
Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the Processes dropdown menu. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time (>=70,) then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.
Mavericks and later
Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the View menu. Click on the CPU tab in the toolbar. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time (>=70,) then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.
Often this problem occurs because of a corrupted cache or preferences file or an attempt to write to a corrupted log file.

Mac Book Pro slowing down

Please Help, Heres the details
Hardware Information:
          MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010)
          MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro6,2
          1 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 2 cores
          4 GB RAM
Video Information:
          Intel HD Graphics - VRAM: 288 MB
          NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M - VRAM: 512 MB
System Software:
          OS X 10.9.1 (13B42) - Uptime: 0 days 2:26:18
Disk Information:
          TOSHIBA MK5055GSXF disk0 : (500.11 GB)
                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    c (disk0s2) /: 499.25 GB (350.45 GB free)
                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
          MATSHITADVD-R   UJ-898
USB Information:
          Apple Inc. iPhone
          Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub
                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
          Apple Internal Memory Card Reader
          Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
          Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
          Apple Inc. Built-in iSight
FireWire Information:
Thunderbolt Information:
Kernel Extensions:
Problem System Launch Daemons:
Problem System Launch Agents:
Launch Daemons:
          [loaded] com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist 3rd-Party support link
Launch Agents:
          [not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [loaded] com.adobe.CS5ServiceManager.plist 3rd-Party support link
User Launch Agents:
          [loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [loaded] com.divx.agent.postinstall.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [loaded] com.google.GoogleContactSyncAgent.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist 3rd-Party support link
User Login Items:
          iTunesHelper
Internet Plug-ins:
          FolxNetscapePlugIn: Version: Unknown
          AdobeAAMDetect: Version: AdobeAAMDetect 1.0.0.0 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
          Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9
          AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: Version: 11.0.0 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
          AdobePDFViewer: Version: 11.0.0 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
          DivXBrowserPlugin: Version: 2.2 3rd-Party support link
          OVSHelper: Version: 1.1 3rd-Party support link
          QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
          Google Earth Web Plug-in: Version: 7.1 3rd-Party support link
          SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.0.0 3rd-Party support link
          JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 14.9.0 - SDK 10.7 Outdated! Update
Audio Plug-ins:
          BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9
          AirPlay: Version: 1.9 - SDK 10.9
          AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0 - SDK 10.9
          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9
User Internet Plug-ins:
          Folx3Plugin: Version: 3.0.1 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
          FolxNetscapePlugIn: Version: Unknown
3rd Party Preference Panes:
          DivX 3rd-Party support link
          Growl 3rd-Party support link
          Tuxera NTFS 3rd-Party support link
Bad Fonts:
          None
Old Applications:
          None
Time Machine:
          Auto backup: YES
          Volumes being backed up:
                    c: Disk size: 464.96 GB Disk used: 138.58 GB
          Destinations:
                    Time Machine Backups [Local] (Last used)
                    Total size: 2
                    Total number of backups: 17
                    Oldest backup: 2012-11-28 08:11:07 +0000
                    Last backup: 2013-11-26 17:25:41 +0000
                    Size of backup disk: Excellent
                              Backup size 2 > (Disk size 464.96 GB X 3)
          Time Machine details may not be accurate.
          All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
Top Processes by CPU:
               1%          EtreCheck
               1%          sysmond
               1%          Google Chrome
               1%          WindowServer
               1%          Microsoft Excel
Top Processes by Memory:
          193 MB          Viber
          115 MB          Google Chrome
          86 MB          Microsoft Excel
          86 MB          mds_stores
          74 MB          WindowServer
Virtual Memory Information:
          1.00 GB          Free RAM
          1.73 GB          Active RAM
          303 MB          Inactive RAM
          862 MB          Wired RAM
          872 MB          Page-ins
          0 B          Page-outs

Things You Can Do To Resolve Slow Downs
If your computer seems to be running slower here are some things you can do:
Start with visits to:     OS X Maintenance - MacAttorney;
                                  The X Lab: The X-FAQs;
                                  The Safe Mac » Mac Performance Guide;
                                  The Safe Mac » The myth of the dirty Mac;
                                  Mac maintenance Quick Assist.
Boot into Safe Mode then repair your hard drive and permissions:
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions Pre-Lion
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
Repair the Hard Drive - Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the Utilites Menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD disk icon and click on the arrow button below.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported, then click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
Restart your computer normally and see if this has helped any. Next do some maintenance:
For situations Disk Utility cannot handle the best third-party utility is Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.x is now Intel Mac compatible.
Note: Alsoft ships DW on a bootable DVD that will startup Macs running Snow Leopard or earlier. It cannot start Macs that came with Lion or later pre-installed, however, DW will work on those models.
Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts was significantly reduced since Tiger. These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard or later and should not be installed.
OS X automatically defragments files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive.
Helpful Links Regarding Malware Protection
An excellent link to read is Tom Reed's Mac Malware Guide.
Also, visit The XLab FAQs and read Detecting and avoiding malware and spyware.
See these Apple articles:
          Mac OS X Snow Leopard and malware detection
          OS X Lion- Protect your Mac from malware
          OS X Mountain Lion- Protect your Mac from malware
          About file quarantine in OS X
If you require anti-virus protection I recommend using VirusBarrier Express 1.1.6 or Dr.Web Light both from the App Store. They're both free, and since they're from the App Store, they won't destabilize the system. (Thank you to Thomas Reed for these recommendations.)
Troubleshooting Applications
I recommend downloading a utility such as TinkerTool System, OnyX, Mavericks Cache Cleaner, or Cocktail that you can use for removing old log files and archives, clearing caches, etc. Corrupted cache, log, or temporary files can cause application or OS X crashes as well as kernel panics.
If you have Snow Leopard or Leopard, then for similar repairs install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the command line. Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack 1.6 is compatible with Snow Leopard. Applejack does not work with Lion and later.
Basic Backup
For some people Time Machine will be more than adequate. Time Machine is part of OS X. There are two components:
1. A Time Machine preferences panel as part of System Preferences;
2. A Time Machine application located in the Applications folder. It is
    used to manage backups and to restore backups. Time Machine
    requires a backup drive that is at least twice the capacity of the
    drive being backed up.
Alternatively, get an external drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Carbon Copy Cloner
2. Get Backup
3. Deja Vu
4. SuperDuper!
5. Synk Pro
6. Tri-Backup
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files. For help with using Time Machine visit Pondini's Time Machine FAQ for help with all things Time Machine.
Referenced software can be found at MacUpdate.
Additional Hints
Be sure you have an adequate amount of RAM installed for the number of applications you run concurrently. Be sure you leave a minimum of 10% of the hard drive's capacity as free space.
Add more RAM. If your computer has less than 2 GBs of RAM and you are using OS X Leopard or later, then you can do with more RAM. Snow Leopard and Lion work much better with 4 GBs of RAM than their system minimums. The more concurrent applications you tend to use the more RAM you should have.
Always maintain at least 15 GBs or 10% of your hard drive's capacity as free space, whichever is greater. OS X is frequently accessing your hard drive, so providing adequate free space will keep things from slowing down.
Check for applications that may be hogging the CPU:
Pre-Mavericks
Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the Processes dropdown menu. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time (>=70,) then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.
Mavericks and later
Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the View menu. Click on the CPU tab in the toolbar. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time (>=70,) then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.
Often this problem occurs because of a corrupted cache or preferences file or an attempt to write to a corrupted log file.
Or you can simply do this:
Reinstall Mavericks without erasing drive
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported then click on the Repair Permissions button. When the process is completed, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
Reinstall Mavericks
OS X Mavericks- Reinstall OS X
     Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet
                if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

Troubleshooting slow down on G5 PowerMac (PPC May 05)

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